Weekend Report

rpaling · **Joined:** Tue Oct 14, 2003 4:32 pm **Posts:** 57

My dad and I headed up on from Kitchener on Thursday evening and fished Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning. On Friday morning headed right to the ferry (just east with all the other boats) and picked up two 11 pounders between 10-11 am - one on a clown HJ and one on a clown Shad Rap. Used planer boards and 1.25 ounce snap weight. That was it for us on Friday. We went out after a lunch break but no luck. We found very few baitfish in Picton Bay in the evening and marked very few fish. Headed out on Saturday morning and picked up 2 more at the ferry - one 10 pounds and one 7 pounds - both on perch coloured Cordell minnows (same system as above). Headed over to Thompson's before lunch and picked up 2 more - a 10 pounder and then a 2 pounder - both on perch coloured Rapalla ice fishing minnow. Took off from there to go in for a quick lunch (after 2 quick fish), came back out to Thompson's and they were gone! :cry:

No luck during the remainder of the evening and once again very few baitfish or walleye marked in the bay. Headed out this morning for one last kick at the can. Headed to the ferry and picked up 2 quick ones - one 11 pounds and one 8 pounds - both on the perch Cordell minnow. After that, no luck - fished until 11 am. All fish were released (after some photos)

My dad and I have not fished this kind of fishing much before and we had a blast!! I would like to thank everyone for their excellent posts and hope that mine might help someone too. I find this board very helpful. Can anyone tell me where I can buy the smaller planer boards (I am using the larger ones and they can be a nuisance) and is one better than another?? The only downside of the trip was seeing many large fish being kept. I can't imagine these fish tasting very good and I think they must be great breeders. A game warden met us at the dock at Tip of the Bay last night and told us that lots of big fish are being kept. Anyway, not to end on a negative note, we had a great time and will be back next year!! Good luck to all.

baffish · **Posted:** Sun Nov 23, 2003 9:24 pm

rpaling, I too share your concern over the # of large fish being kept. I know the regs allow, but as a species, man just does not seem to learn to control our harvest. I like a feed of walleye as much as the next guy, but the smaller ones are much better in the pan.

passthepitonspete · **Posted:** Sun Nov 23, 2003 10:07 pm

Hey!

You guys who are reading this and keeping those big fish?

Look, they taste like crrrrrrap, eh?

And secondly, they are full of contaminants - check the Fishing Guide.

And thirdly, are you nuts? [see #2 above]

Have a heart. If you want your kids to catch fish, maybe you should consider practising catch and release on the big sows?

Ken & Jo · **Joined:** Mon Oct 07, 2002 7:43 am **Posts:** 294

I don't know that the people keeping all the double digit eyes are eating them. I would think that the people keeping them are having them mounted. If that's the case, maybe they should consider the fiberglass mounts. I can't remember where I read or heard this, but isn't a 10 plus pounder somewhere around 15 years old? It's a shame that a fish that old has eluded predators, disease etc. only to end up on someones wall. All of the walleyes we caught over the last few weeks were released. Don't get me wrong, I love a good feast of walleye but as most people know the ones under 19" are the best and least contaminated with mercury and toxins. I'll be having a fiberglass replica of my 13 lber made by a guy out of Kingston (assuming I don't get a bigger one this weekend). It's going to be around $495 taxes and shipping included. It's a bit pricier than a skin mount but I feel better about releasing those older fish. I thought I was done for the year and winterized my boat but I am under Dr.'s orders to continue fishing into December (Dr. Piton that is). :wink:

Ken

jIMBO · **Posted:** Mon Nov 24, 2003 10:03 am

I stayed at Merlands this weekend and was amazed at how busy the
fish cleaning station was. Lots of big fish under the knife. This makes
no sense to me at all, and it is a real shame. C'mon boys, throw them back!

Jimbo

polliwogg · **Posted:** Mon Nov 24, 2003 1:33 pm

Some guys know how to cook the large fish, they bake or poach or soak them in milk or something.
As for contaminants, you ever see a guy smoke a cigarrette?
Some biologist will tell you if you eat a 10 lber you make a spot for 10 1 lbers

Name Withheld by Request · **Posted:** Mon Nov 24, 2003 2:53 pm

For the very first time, this year, I was forced to keep AND CLEAN a big one (11+). And I never keep anything over 4lbs, no matter where it's from.

Shame......but what are you gonna do when the poor thing just won't revive?

Don't need a song and dance about fish handling, livewell performance, etc. The pig just wouldn't revive. Shame. :oops:

Captain Hank · **Posted:** Mon Nov 24, 2003 4:12 pm

Name Withheld By Request,

just as a side note, keeping your fish that wouldn't revive was the correct thing to do. Releasing a fish that later dies as a result of injury, stress, etc. from fishing, is illegal - it is considered a waste of a natural resource.

Captain Hank
[/b]

DWR · **Posted:** Mon Nov 24, 2003 4:17 pm

Antone wanting smaller fish to eat ( 16-19 inches) should try fishing the mouth of the Trent river,we fished 1-1/2 hrs on Sat. morning. and less then 1 hour on Sunday morning ,we boated 17 fish total and lost 10 all were under 19 inches,we kept 6 for a good feed

YO · **Posted:** Mon Nov 24, 2003 4:25 pm

Not that I condone keeping the trophies. I'd personally rather keep a few small guys for the pan. I noticed Polliwogs reply saying that keeping one 10 pounder makes room for ten 1 pounders. You need to look at another factor, how many more times is a 10 lb'er gonna spawn? How many more times will a 1 lb'er spawn? Do the math, the numbers are huge. A 10lb'er has just about contributed everything that it can to the fishery. I think ten 1 lb'ers are more important than one 10lb'er. It goes against the whole C&R policy of keep a few small ones and release the big ones to spawn again, but really shouldn't we give the smaller fish a chance, they are the future aren't they? Tough call, but I'd rather see a few big guys harvested than see everybody at the launch going home with their limits of small fish. And I'm sure that the guys keeping the bigguns know that they have high levels of contaminants. They just want to eat walleye.

Captain Hank · **Posted:** Mon Nov 24, 2003 4:45 pm

Polliwogg,

a comment on your information from some biologist who mentioned that "keeping one 10-lber makes way for ten 1-lber's". Let's assume that his comment is making reference to a walleye's food source (baitfish). Let's do some math:

- a one pound walleye may (one year later) weigh 2 pounds
- if there are ten of these walleye in total, this means that together they
have gained a total of ten pounds (collectively)
- this means that the one 10-lber must eat as many baitfish (mass) as
the ten 1-lber's do combined. Hard to believe.

My suggestion would be to do the opposite of what the biologist suggests: keep some 1-lb fish and live-release the 10-lber's to allow for the production of more 1-lber's

Captain Hank

Wall-I-Guy · **Posted:** Mon Nov 24, 2003 6:41 pm

To me the big ones are too toxic, just look at the sores some people see on their catch. That being said. If I ever get that elusive 15 pounder, you can bet it'll be on my wall.

I even released my personal best to date,a 13lb 8ozer.
I'm here for the sport of it.

I get enough pickerel to eat at the cottage!....

polliwogg · **Posted:** Mon Nov 24, 2003 9:18 pm

There are those who beleive a body of water will suport so many # 's of fish that you can have in a small # of big fish or a large # of small ones, who knows for sure?

You might be seeing more big fish being kept as a result of the slot size regs where they have to release the more preffured smaller fish.

At any rate the 10 for 1 does not work for the b.o.q. because these large fish are migrants from lake ont. And when you factor in that the slot size has pretty mutch shut down the ice fishing there should be no shortage of spawners, but lots of spawners dosn't result in a good year class of fish, I think you have to look elsewhere like water and spawning bed conditions. If you look at the successfull year classes they seem to follow a winter with heavy snow, whether that cleans the spawning beds or dilutes the road salt or whatever it seems to matter. I think habitat has more influence than who keeps what fish but its easier to make a law than to protect habitat and once manufacturers push one way of thinking its hard to look at things in a different way. Wasn't it some kind of a striped sea bass on the US east coast wiped out by catch and release?
At any rate I'd rather watch a guy eat a 10 lber than see him dump 50 lbs of salt on the boat ramp.

By the way , you didn't happen to see anybody drop a boat in front of beckers did you? There's got to be a good story behind that one!

Ken & Jo · **Joined:** Mon Oct 07, 2002 7:43 am **Posts:** 294

Captain Hank wrote:

Name Withheld By Request,

just as a side note, keeping your fish that wouldn't revive was the correct thing to do. Releasing a fish that later dies as a result of injury, stress, etc. from fishing, is illegal - it is considered a waste of a natural resource.

Captain Hank
[/b]

If the fish is in the slot, don't you still have to release it even if it's going to die? A terrible waste of a good fish but I believe the reasoning behind having to release it even if it's going to die is that people would just start purposefully harming fish in the slot in order to keep them. Sorry, don't have the regs in front of me, can anyone confirm?

Ken

dwr · **Posted:** Mon Nov 24, 2003 10:19 pm

ALL fish in the SLOT size must be released weather it lives or dies .

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